This invention relates generally to fishing reels having a gear mechanism that comprises a cooperative pair of a face gear and a cylindrical helical pinion to transmit and redirect rotational force. More particularly, this disclosure relates to an improvement of the helical pinion gear of a spinning fishing reel such that the contact surface characteristics between the gears is reduced, and the loading is distributed more effectively within the teeth to thereby improve the life span of the gears.
For a typical spinning fishing reel, the spool and rotor are located at the front of the reel frame. When the handle is rotated, the rotor will rotate around the spool and the spool will be oscillated in the axial direction. The fishing line will then wrap on the spool through the fishing line guide of the rotor.
The rotor drive mechanism includes a face gear and a pinion gear with helical gear teeth for transmitting rotation of a handle to the rotor.
The gear mechanism generally includes a set of gears relationally positioned to allow interaction between the gear surfaces. The operating characteristics and life span of the gears are generally important factors to be considered when developing a fishing reel mechanism. This is because deterioration of the gears results in poor reel performance and a jiggling force will be generated from the gear interactions.
For the typical spinning reel, the shaft of rotation centers of the handle shaft and the rotor are perpendicular to each other in an offset state. The cross-sectional area of each face gear tooth is smaller in inside pitch and larger in the outside pitch such that the tooth strength is weaker at the inside pitch and larger at the outside pitch.
The durability of the gears directly relates to the function of the reel since any deterioration in the gears result in gear back lash and/or different than normal operational characteristics.
Compensation mechanisms are desired to rectify the situation.